Cumberland County jail should cut its contract with ICE

On Monday, October 20, Cumberland County Commissioners will vote on agenda item 24-112, deciding whether or not to continue the county jail’s contract to hold ICE detainees. Last May, a loose coalition of individuals and organizations called No ICE for Maine began organizing and speaking out during public comment at the commissioners’ meetings, arguing that the county was being used by ICE as a small cog in their deportation machine. Five months later, after hundreds of members of the public have spoken out, thousands have signed a petition to end the contract, widespread press coverage, and public and private arguments and discussions with the board, we are on the eve of what would be an historic decision in the fight for immigrant rights. The letter below was sent the letter below to the commissioners as part of that campaign prior to a special hearing late last month.

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Dear Cumberland County Commissioners,

A final plea.

If you don’t have time to read this entire note, then before tonight’s hearing, please read and put yourself in the frame of mind of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It reads, in part,

“Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

I first met you all back on May 17 at your monthly meeting. At the time, I believe those of us who value equality before the law, human rights, and basic respect for individual liberty were all in shock at the brazen assault on the rule of law by the Trump Administration. I have consistently counseled my counterparts to appreciate the administration’s strength and to assume that Trump and his cohorts will cling to power, no matter the cost. However, I have to admit that I hoped along with everyone else back in May that Trump’s drive to consolidate power might stumble and break apart. Four months later, it should be clear that any cause of such optimism is unfounded. What remains is a test of political power.

This is nothing new in American politics. The Declaration of Independence was illegal from the Crown’s point of view. The Fugitive Slave Act (in fact, there were several such Acts) was legal, resistance to it was not. Separate But Equal segregation was legal, Dr. King was an outlaw. As were the Suffragettes, the CIO, and the UFW. Political power resolved each of these conflicts, laws and their interpretations followed after. Someone had to take a stand to put these processes in motion.

Prior to the 1920s, immigration was open to virtually all Europeans. Speaking for you and me, whose ancestors came from that part of the world, our families were declared legal while today’s Black and Brown and Asian huddling masses are declared illegal. Keep in mind that enormous numbers of those being detained today are LEGAL, they have asylum claims pending, but ICE and Border Patrol snatch them up because of the color of their skin.

Trump has decided that the knife he will use to cut the Constitution down to his liking is an all out attack on our immigrant neighbors. He is not enforcing the law. He is using political power to create facts of the ground that his hand-picked Supreme Court will later codify or, perhaps, temper to one degree or another. That ought to be plain to see by now. Trump is not winding down, he is winding up.

I prefer to persuade and to reason, but here comes a time when all room for equivocation is over. For the past four months, you have seen what we have seen: Trump is using ICE as a practice squad for fascist repression. He is not yet able to impose that without dissent. But Congress just gave him $145 billion to build this machine and he intends to do so. Locally, Border Patrol and ICE act with impunity, masked up, raiding worksites and threatening schools. They will be more powerful and audacious in the coming months.

No ICE for Maine did not start this debate. ICE started it and you ought to have reacted before we ever turned up. But after four months of public testimony and ICE terror, the sum total of your actions is as follows: 1/ you had a 60 minute meeting with No ICE for Maine representatives in July at which you listened to Sheriff Joyce describe the rapid rise in the number of ICE detainees in his jail, while admitting that he had no idea where most of them were living when they were detained; 2/ by your own admission, you spent much of August researching and refining rules for public comment [to limit it] instead of proposing to work with us to oppose ICE in whatever way you might have preferred, 3/ and you have schedule a single 2 hour workshop scheduled for tonight [September 29] in which No ICE for Maine is supplying the majority of the presenters while the majority of the presenters you designated represent law enforcement, but you haven’t even compelled an appearance by an ICE representative.

Here is how this looks. You are angry at us for breaking decorum, while you have not lifted a finger to oppose ICE as it increases its operations in the very institution under your direct supervision, the Cumberland County Jail.

I believe you when you say you are disturbed by ICE’s actions.

I believe you when you say you hope people protest ICE elsewhere.

I believe you when you say you believe, whatever its limitations, in the rule of law.

But if you vote to continue the contract with ICE, you will demonstrate that you lack the courage of your convictions. You didn’t ask to be put in this position, but you are elected officials so it is your job to make hard decisions.

Here is the way out: Sheriff Joyce openly declares that he will defy the Commissioners if you vote to terminate the contract. He believes he has the law on his side. Well, then. Vote to terminate the contract and we will move to the next phase of this fight, that is, whether or not the Sheriff is obeying state law. The Maine Supreme Court has not yet been wrecked, so the dispute will get a fair hearing there and it will open the door for the Legislature to consider it as well.

Until September’s meeting, Commissioner Gorden stated multiple times that, to paraphrase, if cutting the contract is the right thing to do, the Commissioners will do so without regard to financial considerations. At the September meeting, he raised the question of the financial impact of terminating the contract. I genuinely hope that he misspoke and that Commissioners are not weighing their commitment to equality before the law against a few pieces of silver. Your careers in public service deserve better than that.

Take a stand for our immigrant neighbors. Vote to terminate the contract. Vote no to ICE. Vote yes to accountability, democracy, and civil liberties. Help us bring to life the old slogan, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.”